Problem: Simplify the following expression: $p = \dfrac{-5y^2 - 5y + 360}{y + 9} $
First factor the polynomial in the numerator. We notice that all the terms in the numerator have a common factor of $-5$ , so we can rewrite the expression: $ p =\dfrac{-5(y^2 + 1y - 72)}{y + 9} $ Then we factor the remaining polynomial: $y^2 + {1}y {-72} $ ${9} {-8} = {1}$ ${9} \times {-8} = {-72}$ $ (y + {9}) (y {-8}) $ This gives us a factored expression: $\dfrac{-5(y + {9}) (y {-8})}{y + 9}$ We can divide the numerator and denominator by $(y - 9)$ on condition that $y \neq -9$ Therefore $p = -5(y - 8); y \neq -9$